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Setting Up Your Availability

How to build a schedule that reflects your hours of availability

Updated this week

In order for people to schedule with you or your company, it's important to decide when you're available. Appointlet gives you full control over the times people are allowed to book with you, whether you're consistently available at the same times each week or on specific dates only. There are two ways to set up availability:

  1. Schedules: Configure one or more schedules for yourself and team members in the Schedule Manager. Schedules are helpful when you need to use the same availability across multiple meeting types.
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  2. Ad Hoc (Custom) Availability: Make exceptions to your standard schedule(s) for a specific meeting type. This is especially helpful when multiple people are assigned to a meeting type who need to use the same schedule.

These options give you plenty of flexibility whether you and your team work separately or together. Before we review the tools for editing time slots, let's take a look at the two types of availability in more detail.

Schedules

Click the Availability tab on the left navigation bar to open the Schedule Manager. Schedules configured here belong to specific team members and will follow them throughout the app.

This means that each team member may use the same schedule for multiple meeting types across separate scheduling pages.

You can create as many schedules as needed. One will always be assigned as your default, which means it will be selected automatically any time you create a new meeting type. Having multiple schedules means you can pair them with the corresponding meeting types - and edit them all in one place!

Hint: We recommend naming your schedules so they match the meeting type they're meant to be used for.

Types of Schedules

The videos below outline a number of common scheduling scenarios. Follow along with the one that sounds closest to your desired scheduling style, or use any combination of these options.

My schedule is the same every week

My schedule changes every week

Specific dates for an event

Blocking out specific dates

My schedule is the same each week, with exceptions

My hours change seasonally

Assigning Schedules to Meeting Types

The schedules you've configured in the Schedule Manager will be available for use in any meeting types you're assigned to. Click on a meeting type to open the meeting type settings. Start by visiting the Availability tab to decide which schedule you'd like to use.

Team Pages

If you're editing a meeting type within a Team Page, select the "Use Schedules" option.

Next, click over to the Team Members tab. This is where you'll choose the schedule you want to use for the current meeting type. Click the schedule in the box next to your name under the "Schedules" column and choose the schedule you'd like to use for this meeting type. You can click the "Edit" button to the right of your schedule to return to the Schedule Manager and make any necessary changes to your schedule.

Individual Pages

Pairing schedules with team members is not required when editing individual pages. Each individual page belongs to a specific member who will always be assigned as the host of meetings booked through their individual page.

To choose a schedule, click the schedule dropdown list in the Availability menu and select the one you'd like to use for the current meeting type.

Configuring Schedules for Others

Only those assigned to the "Admin" role in the Members menu may edit schedules on behalf of other team members. Those assigned to the "Manager" or "Member" roles may edit only their own schedules.

Admins can toggle between team members by clicking the "Editing" box at the top right corner of the Schedule Manager. Selecting a different team member from the dropdown list lets you see and edit the schedules assigned to the selected member.

Custom Meeting Type Availability

If you need to make an exception to your schedule for a particular meeting type or use a single schedule for multiple team members, a custom availability schedule is a quick and easy solution.

Team Pages

In the Availability tab of a meeting type in a team page, click "Set a Unified Availability for Everyone" at the top of the Availability tab in the meeting type settings to create a schedule specific to the current meeting type.

Selecting this option removes the "Schedule" column from the Team Members tab and will instead use the time slots configured in the Availability tab.

Individual Pages

For meeting types configured within individual pages, click "Custom Availability" at the bottom of the schedule dropdown list in the Availability tab.

Editing Time Slots

Whether using Schedules or Custom Availability, it's important to accurately configure the time slots you want to display on your scheduling page. The tools outlined below are applicable to both types of availability and can be found in both the Schedule Manager and the Availability tab of the meeting type settings menu.

Recurring Weekly Hours

By default, Appointlet displays availability on a repeating weekly basis. This means that any weekday/weekend availability you configure between Monday and Sunday will repeat indefinitely. This is a great set-and-forget strategy if you work regular hours each week.
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To update your weekly hours, click Edit Recurring Weekly Hours at the top right of the schedule itself. The editor window that appears give you full control over your time slots and weekdays.

Date-Specific Hours

To set availability on specific dates, click "Add Date-Specific Hours" to the right of your recurring weekly hours and select each date individually. You can choose more than one date at a time.

Important: Date-specific hours take priority over your recurring weekly and seasonal hours, which means marking a specific date "unavailable" will remove all availability from that date.

Seasonal Hours

Seasonal hours behave much like weekly hours in the sense that they repeat each week, but seasonal hours are limited to a date range of your choosing. This is a great tool for setting different business hours if you're traveling or if you work different hours depending on the time of year.

Click "Add Seasonal Hours" below your weekly hours to set your repeating seasonal schedule and date range.

Seasonal hours override weekly hours automatically, which means you don't need to make any changes to your weekly hours. Your availability will smoothly revert back to your weekly schedule once the seasonal date range has passed.

Choosing Start and End Times

To update when your availability windows start and end each day, simply click on the time slots themselves in any of the availability editors and select a new start or end time from the dropdown menu.

Adding Time Slots

To add a time slot to an empty weekday or to add extra windows of availability to a weekday, click the small plus (+) sign to the right of each weekday.

Removing Time Slots

To remove availability from any weekdays, click the small "x" icon to the right of the times slots. If a weekday has more than one window of availability, you may remove them individually at your discretion. Weekdays with no availability are "unavailable" and will not display any time slots on the scheduling page.

Copying Time Slots

If you need to apply custom time slots from one day to any others, Appointlet makes this quick and easy via the copy tool at the far right of each weekday. Click the copy icon to view a list of weekdays and select the checkbox next to each one you'd like to apply your custom times to.

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